Thursday, November 6, 2008

Dogs on Thursday

Di can no longer lay like this, and her snout is almost totally white, but she is still my baby!

My dog, Di, who is also my baby, is in very poor health. She has mitral valve prolapse (heart condition) arthritis, and the vet suspects she has a cancerous growth on her rump that cannot be removed due to her heart condition. When I got home yesterday, her hips where splayed across the floor and she could not get up without help, but I took her for a walk and she thought she was a puppy again. She is a happy dog, and loves to get into anything she is not supposed to be in, i.e. chocolate (she had a miniature Kit-Kat for breakfast). I know that Di is feeling poorly most of the time because she has quit chasing the cats and allows them to get on the bed with us, even Onyx (she hates Onyx). She plays with Lola for a few minutes and then has to stop and rest. Right now, we are just trying to keep her comfortable and give her the quality of life she deserves.

I am not writing this to make anyone sad, because for the most part she is happy and does not realize how sick she is, nevertheless, I know her time in this life is short. Last night she coughed around midnight-thirty and then lay perfectly still (and scared the crud out of me). I pushed her and tried to get her to move, but she was sound asleep; however, I kept waking up afraid that she had died. Now I know this sounds horrible, but I was afraid to find out, she was so still (normally she would have woken me up to get under the covers). Finally, at o dark-thirty, I got up and woke her up and she looked at me as if I was crazy. She said, “Ma, what’s the problem, I am sleeping here!” and went right back to sleep. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

I think tonight I will take a sleeping pill.

5 comments:

"Skipper" said...

(((Georgi))) I'm so sorry to hear this about your beloved dog. I'm not much of a dog person, but we had to put our old family cat down a few years ago (she was 19) after watching her health deteriorate for several months, and it was SO hard. I'll be thinking about you...

Anonymous said...

Georgi, I can so sympathize with you. My baby, "Jake", is getting on in years. He's a beautiful golden retriever who has good days and bad days. Some days he can't move and I too think he has stopped breathing. Other days, he looks like a puppy again and plays like a puppy, but then suffers the arthritis of an old dog. It breaks my heart to think of life without him.

For now, I try and appreciate him every single day. Extra hugs and biscuit and ear scratches and brushes. He deserves so much more!

Give your pup a hug from me and a biscuit please.

Cindy

Sue said...

It's so hard to watch them age. We lost Lucy a couple months ago and Morgan probably doesn't have much time left. Yesterday I looked over at Monty and was shocked to see that his muzzle is all gray. Make the most of every day you have left together. Our thoughts are with you.

Anonymous said...

Aww... I'm so sorry. My "puppy" is now 12 (I think?), and his muzzle has grayed as well. He's a shih tzu, appropriately named Harry. He has spent many long days with me on the couch when I felt terrible after sugeries and so many more times. I don't want to say "I know how you feel" (I have never liked it when people say that... most of the time they don't), but I can sympathize. Harry scared me the crap out of me last night - I woke up and couldn't hear him snoring under my bed. I did the same thing you did, and woke him up. Needless to say, he wasn't happy with me! I had nightmares the rest of the night.

I will keep both of you in my thoughts & prayers.

Beverly said...

It's amazing how much they come to mean to us, isn't it. Duke (you can read about him on my blog)is eleven years old and just had surgery. he doesn't know he's eleven and runs around like a big, old puppy. at 75 lbs he still likes to climb in my hubby's lap. We thought we lost him in the summer when he jumped over into the neighbor's yard and they left their gate open, but the dog catcher caught him and they called us. (he'a lojacked now.) He's our baby and getting a little up there, but we're hoping for another good five years or so.